


Hot Coco Helps

by triwizard_tardis



Series: Adventures with Peggy Rogers [2]
Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Flashbacks, Fluff and Angst, I'm using my oc again, M/M, Mostly Fluff, Non Graphic, Not a lot of angst, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, and some minorly detailed effects, because she's adorable, just kinda mentions it, peggy is NOT Peggy carter
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-02
Updated: 2015-02-02
Packaged: 2018-03-10 05:18:42
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,109
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3278216
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/triwizard_tardis/pseuds/triwizard_tardis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bucky has a bad night that wakes up the whole house. Peggy makes hot chocolate to make him feel better.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hot Coco Helps

**Author's Note:**

> Unbeta-ed and also unedited by me. I literally only wrote it. It's been a long time and I'm scared of my writing style. If you find any mistakes or have any complaints about my grammar/sentence structure, comment and let me know. I'll do my best to fix it.
> 
> Also. I don't own Captain America and I'm not being paid to advertise for Swiss Miss which I also do not own. This fic is purely for fan enjoyment.
> 
> Enjoy :)

For the most part Bucky is more or less stable. Peggy turns five in a week, and while parenting has easily been one of the most stressful tasks he's ever undertaken, compared to other thing, being Papa to this wonderful little girl has been the most therapeutic thing to ever happen to him. That doesn't, of course, erase the traumatic events of Bucky's past. Nothing will ever erase what he's done, and he still has nightmares occasionally, waking up gasping in a cold sweat, but it's been close to seven years now since he's had a panic attack this bad.

He wakes up growling and thrashing in the covers next to Steve. His mind is trapped at a surgeons chair, electric shocks surging through his head. The comforter over the bed serves as the restraints and he can't break free. Fortunately it takes about 2.8 seconds for Steve to surge to full wakefulness, dutifully untangling Bucky from his side of the bed, carefully keeping his distance so as not to startle the already distress super soldier. Bucky scrambles out of bed and huddles in the corner of the room.

Unfortunately, living in a small house with few people sets sound traveling pretty far pretty fast. Bucky is rocking on the balls of his feet in the fetal position in the corner, when Peggy toddles in, light brown hair a tangled mess of soft curls, rubbing at her eyes with her blanky. All Steve can think is, 'shit'.

"Daddy?" comes her voice, as smooth and honey colored as her curls. "Daddy? Is Papa alright? Papa?" As she inquires, she advances on Bucky and starts tapping his flesh shoulder with the palm of her tiny hand. Steve freezes, and so does Bucky. For a few minutes, Bucky sits stark still, Steve staring on in shock, as Peggy taps his shoulder repeating, "Papa? Papa, are you okay? It's Peggy. Papa?" The scene is so touching it breaks Steve's heart, and luckily also his trance.

"Peggy, yo-yo? Papa just needs a little space. Why don't..." Steve trails off, searching the room for a distraction. His eyes fall on the coffee mug on the bedside table left over from breakfast. "Why don't you make Papa some hot cocoa!" Steve suggests enthusiastically, he'll deal with the mess that makes later. For now, he needs space to piece together his husband. Peggy starts toddling out of the room looking a little lost, and sad that she can't be more help, so to add some depth to the importance of her presence, he stops her just before the door.

"Yo-yo! You should get Papa's favorite mug!" Steve's voice stays at a steady volume just above a whisper, but his enthusiasm does not go amiss on the little girl. She hurriedly, scrambles toward the bedside table. Stretching and reaching for the mug as she does, Steve is more than a little impressed when she catches the cup as it topples off the table. Then she scrambles out of the room, giving Steve the space to bring Bucky down, which he already seems to be doing on his own.

As Peggy reaches the kitchen, she flips on the light and moves the kitchen stool out from below it, and around the kitchen as she works. She sets the mug on the counter by the sink and runs the hot water until her fingers feel cold. She leaves that heating as she goes to retrieve the milk from the fridge. Now, Peggy's no fool. She knows hot chocolate doesn't just come from nowhere. She knows Daddy uses a special hot chocolate mix. The question is: what goes in it? Well. Clearly hot cocoa is chocolate. Which means it's brown. And there's a box in the pantry with a brown nut on it that smells like chocolate when she opens it. She licks the end of her pinkie finger and dips it into the canister of brown powder. She licks it again to get the taste, and blanches. This stuff's bitter! But it looks like chocolate. And it smells like chocolate. She takes it with her over to the counter. She fills the mug halfway with the hot water and turns off the faucet because Daddy says you should always clean up as you work. She sets the mug down on the counter and pours a small mountain of the chocolate powder nicely atop the water. It begins to dissolve and she thinks it looks about right, but she can't help but remember the bitter taste. Sugar! Daddy always put sugar in things when he wants to make them sweet. That's what she's missing! She grabs the sugar shaker from by the stove and starts to shake sugar into the cup. She finishes noticing some has caught on her still wet pinkie finger. She licks it off only to discover it's actually salt. Which means she just put salt in Papa's already bitter hot cocoa. She needs real sugar, and lots of it, to repair this. She gets the blue and white bag from the pantry again, and checks to make sure is sugar before she pours it in the mug this time. She pours it until it covers the mound of cocoa powder. It looks a little off so she grabs a spoon and stirs it all together. When something's still not quite right she spots the milk, remembering that Daddy sometimes put milk into mixture just for good measure. She pours in a splash, literally a splash that she sops up weakly with a paper towel, then she rushes off to save her Papa.

The burned, contrived liquid sloshes onto the rug for the fourth time as she rounds the corner into Steve and Bucky's room. By now, Steve has broken Bucky out of whatever hell his mind had tossed him into. Just in time, he hears tiny stomping feet and spins around only to watch the staining liquid in her hands seeps into the carpet.

"No, n-n-n-n-n-n-n-n-no," Steve springs up and goes to slow down his daughter. "Peggy! Peggy, yo-yo, you have to be careful," Steve stresses gently. The pout that overtakes Peggy's face looks both petulant and self deprecating.

"But I made Papa hot cocoa," she weakly tries to justify. Steve starts to reassure her but is swiftly interrupted by a voice, he is relieved to find, that sounds entirely human.

"Peggy pie, Daddy's just a little strung up right now," Bucky assures. His voice sounds scratchy, having only growled in its use so for today. But he sounds alive, and almost better. Peggy nearly tosses the mug in the air, forgetting she's holding it until weight resists the movement of her hands. Instead, she just runs over, shoving the mug up under Bucky's nose.

"Papa!" she shouts, "Papa, look! I made you hot chocolate!" Bucky grins fondly at his daughter, shakily moving to take the mug from her hands. Steve wants to draw Peggy back, give Bucky the space Steve wants to tell her he needs. But Bucky takes the mug and smiles mischievously at the expectant look on Peggy's face. He's calmer now. Steve knows he had something to do with that, but he calmed down even more the second Peggy bounded into the room. Steve thinks he's just saving face, and playing strong for Peggy now that he's in a conscious state of mind, but something about Peggy's energy, even at three o'clock in the morning, seems to suck the anxiety out of Bucky. As though he can't exert the energy to panic with that soft beaming face bouncing so hopefully at his side.

Bucky takes a sip of the warm liquid, and impresses himself when he doesn't spit it out. Clearly, Peggy thinks that Steve makes the Swiss Miss cocoa mix in the kitchen pantry because this tastes like bitter, baking chocolate and salt. His eyebrows shoot to his hairline, and he puckers his lips, forcing the concoction down his throat.

"Wow! Sweety, this is fantastic!" He half lies. It's in no way good, but it's almost fantasy that it ended up being this bad. "What did you put in it?" Peggy glomps her father around the neck.

"I'm glad you like it," she beams, then bounces off his lap like a rabbit and sits criss-cross applesauce in front of him to regale her escapades in the kitchen. Eventually, her presence begins to seep the tension from Steve's shoulders too. When she throws herself around Bucky's neck and Bucky just falls back chuckling, Steve gives up trying to get Peggy to keep her distance and collapses into a sitting position on the floor, legs crossed, to join them.

"Well," Peggy begins, "I started with the water, which I held my hand under until it turned cold," she turns and adds this bit directly to Steve, then spins back around to Bucky, "then I got the box of chocolate from the cabinet. But when I tasted to make sure it was chocolate, it was bitter!" she announces in a childish disbelief. Bucky's face lights up, to hide the concerning fact that his daughter tastes raw baking chocolate and didn't stop there to ask for help.

"No way!" He expresses in false disbelief, answering her unasked question of 'can you believe it!?' 

She nods resolutely and continues, "Way. And so I though about how sugar makes stuff sweet, so I grabbed the sugar but the stove. Except it wasn't sugar, it was salt, bleh. But I had already put the salt in when I found out it was salt, because I licked the bit that got on my finger, so I went to the pantry and got the blue and white bag and made sure to test it first," she paused to put emphasis on the fact that she learned her lesson, "then I poured it in and mixed it around. But it still looked really dark, so I put in some milk and it looked right again. And!" She adds just when her dads think it's over, "I put away the milk." She sits and smiles proudly and as much as her parents are dreading the mess in the kitchen, they can't help but smile proudly with her.

"Well you did a wonderful job, yo-yo," praises Bucky, "but later, I'm gonna show how to make hot chocolate like you've never tasted in your life!" Peggy bounces and claps and giggles. Steve sighs, knowing that tomorrow is going to be a long day, but Bucky grins and does what Steve's been itching to do since Peggy woke up. He stands and swoops Peggy over his shoulder as she giggles and squirms in protest.

"Alright Peggy pie," Bucky announces gruffly, "it is time for bed." He throws over his shoulder, punctuating each word with the sincerity of his point. She whines in protest, but with super soldier dads there isn't much passed whining she can do to stop them. Bucky jogs her into her bedroom, so she gets the benefit of bouncing up and down on the journey. He plops her on the bed and she's giggling like a mad woman. 

When he tries to tuck her in, she squirms away with a petulant, "no!" Eventually, he catches her and pulls the covers up under her chin and holds her there.

"Bedtime," he pronounces sternly. She pouts. "Aw come on, yo-yo, we have a big day tomorrow. We're gonna make hot chocolate after school, then Uncle Tony wants us to come over for movie night! Doesn't that sound fun?" Peggy's face lights up.

"Yeah!" And Bucky's got her where he wants her.

"Then you're gonna need all your energy," he reasons. The pout returns to her face, but she resigns to a begrudging 'fine'. "'Atta girl," says Bucky, pecking a good night kiss to her forehead, and moving away so Steve can say his good nights. But before he can reach the door way to tag out, she stops him.

"On one condition," she bargains, her voice still whining a bit. Bucky waits to hear her terms. "Promise me that you're gonna be okay, tonight." There's a comically juxtaposed pout in her words. Bucky sighs heavily. Steve walks over and settles at her feet.

"I promise, that I will protect Papa from all the scary pictures in his head. Now you trust me, right yo-yo?" Peggy nods her head adamantly. "Then you know, that I'm gonna keep Papa safe no matter what." A small reassured smile graces her lips, and his mirror it. He kisses her forehead and they all exchange good nights, before drowsiness washed over her and she was out for the night.

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, so the opening note is a lie. (although I don't actually own Captain America, and I'm not being paid to advertise for Swiss Miss which I also do not own) I've gone back and read over it twice now, because I'm obsessive.
> 
> Anyway, hope you liked it :)


End file.
